Microsoft is pleased to recognize and award its Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs). The MVP Award is given to thank individuals for their exceptional contributions to technical communities worldwide. When a community participant sees an MVP in a technical community, whether in a newsgroup, as a user group host, a conference speaker, or a respondent in forums, that community participant can be confident that the information shared by the MVP will be of the highest caliber and will help every user make the most of the technology. Worldwide more than 100 million users participate in technical communities; 65 of these users are active Microsoft MVPs in the category Windows Embedded.

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If you are trying to install the File Based Write Filter Management Tool under POSReady 7 with the unattended switch /q the setup will crash. A normal installation by using the wizard will work but what if you still want to install the packages unattended?

I tried to find a solution for this and found one by opening the setup executable in 7-Zip. In the executable you can find a file that contains all the contents that will be installed – it is also the biggest file in there. By browsing the content of this file I was able to find a CAB file that contains the Management Tool for the File Based Write Filter.

So if you open the setup in 7-zip browse into the file named _6A2E8856175EB21FF530C062DB932CCF and extract the file _9ED2FC71C85841E79ABDAF5239B47983. Rename the latter one to FBWFMGMT.cab.

After that you can use DISM to add the Management Tool unattended. E.g.: by executing DISM /Online /Add-Package /PackagePath:FBWFMGMT.cab

Please make sure that you add the File Based Write Filter and the WMI Provider for the File Based Write Filter first – otherwise the Management Tool will fail to start.

Microsoft has reached another stage in the development of Windows Embedded 8 Standard and they just published the Release Preview of the product on the Microsoft Connect Website.

Important changes in this release are the implemented Windows Activation, the removed USB Filter (introduced in CTP3).

To download the new Release Preview please visit the Microsoft Connect Website.

The Windows Offline Configurator is fully compatible with the new CTP3 version of Windows Embedded Standard 8. However you will need to download the new package to get the new license file to run build images for the CTP3.

With Windows Offline Configurator you can build Windows Embedded Standard 7, Windows Embedded POSReady 7 and Windows Embedded Standard 8 images offline on your fast development machine.
The tool allows you advanced configuration, such as creating the user, password, time zone, etc. The resulting image will not require you to go through OOBE as everything can be configured within the tool.
You can even create a VHD file and build the image into this file for easy deployment!

DISMUI was already supporting the new version of Windows Embedded Standard 8 CTP3. The new version however extends the capabilities for the new CTP by enabling you to remove Modules at any time. This is not possible by the integrated DISM command!

DISMUI does this in a safe way because it is checking for packages that are used by other installed modules before removing them.

Even though this works using this feature might not be supported by Microsoft but it helps you a lot during the image building process or even just for testing.

Using the new feature is easy: Just uncheck the module that should be removed and confirm the warning message. Then continue as usual – DISM does the rest for you!

Microsoft has released a new version of the Community Technical Preview for Windows Embedded Standard 8. It provides additional features and support for Security and Lockdown, Custom Branding, Management and increases the modularity of the system itself and introduces the USB Filter for x86 based devices.

To download it please visit the Microsoft Connect website: https://connect.microsoft.com/windowsembedded

I have released a new version of Driver Extractor that fixes a bug when the tool was used on Windows XP systems. It prevented the driver extraction on these systems which is now fixed.

Also it includes an additional handler for the PMQ file export for drivers which are missing required flags. This prevented an import into the XPe or WES2009 tools.

We have launched a new service for our customers: You can now fill out your CLA online on our website – afterwards the system will allow you to download the pre-filled CLA. All you need to do is print the CLA, sign it and send it to us.

To start the CLA Wizard please go to Microsoft Embedded | CLA | Start The CLA Wizard or click the link below:
http://www.elbacom.com/embedded/cla

Find out more about the services we offer specially for Windows Embedded products.

If you have configured your Windows Embedded system to have one user account that is used to run your embedded application and you would like to use another administrator account to service the machine via RDP you might have seen this message box:

Administrator wants to connect to this machine.

Click OK to disconnect your session immediately or click cancel to stay connected.

Otherwise, you will be disconnected in 30 seconds.

Unfortunately this message will appear every time you need to access your device via RDP. You will need to wait for 30 seconds to connect and a possible end user might see an unwanted Windows prompt.

If you are using Windows Embedded Standard 7 or Windows Embedded POSReady 7 there is an easy workaround to get rid of this confirmation prompt:

You can use the Dialog Filter to filter out the confirmation dialog – this way you can connect immediately to the remote pc without any message box appearing.

Configuration

To configure Dialog Filter first make sure that you have included the Feature Package in your image. If it is not there you can use my free tool DISMUI to add it easily.

Run dialogfiltereditor.exe in the Windows\system32 directory (if you use Windows Embedded Standard 7 this file is located in the  “Windows Embedded Standard 7\EmbeddedSDK\bin\” folder on the WES7 ICE toolkit DVD).

Now add any window and open the properties of the added one by double-clicking.

Change the values to the following:

ProcessName: rundll32.exe

Class Name: #32770

Window Title: Remote Desktop Connection

Action: OK

(You might need to adapt the Window Title for different languages)

Click File / Save and store the configuration in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\DialogFilter\configurationlist.xml

Restart the "Dialog Box Filter” service or restart your device to apply the new configuration.

If you have configured everything you can connect to your device without the confirmation prompt.

Here is my XML configuration sample:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CL:dialogs xmlns:CL="urn:Dialogs">
    <dialog>
    <ProcessImageName>rundll32.exe</ProcessImageName>
    <Title>Remote Desktop Connection</Title>
    <Class>#32770</Class>
    <Buttons>
      <Button>OK</Button>
      <Button>Cancel</Button>
      <Button>Close</Button>
    </Buttons>
    <Actions>
      <Action>OK</Action>
    </Actions>
  </dialog>
</CL:dialogs>